Today’s blog
Lynn Murphy Mark
Necessary, but difficult
Our racial justice learning group has just finished a great book called, “The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together”, by Heather McGhee. It’s a stunning book filled with information about the economic and social ravages of racism in the United States. She makes it crystal clear how racism affects everyone. We read a chapter a month, so our way through the book was slow and measured. When we Zoomed together once a month, the discussions were lively. Our learning curve about racism flattened a bit with each chapter. It was the third book that we have read since July of 2020 when some of us got our group together and started educating ourselves.
Whenever we finish a book, we are sorry to see it go. But we decide to keep going, and look for a new book to tackle. This time around we wanted a book that would help us use the information we have learned. Not only that – we wanted a guide to the best way to talk with others about racism. Each one of us has experienced the unease with which talking about racism engenders. Each one of us wants to find the best way to confront it when it arises.
Even as I write this I realize how it sounds to be a group of white women claiming ignorance about how to go up against it. It seems that we lack the courage to speak out, to have the difficult conversations with friends, family, and strangers we encounter. That is sheer faintness of heart on our part. We have learned, and it can’t be unlearned or ignored. Now I carry information at a gut level – knowledge about my white privilege, knowledge about the disparities that exist, a better understanding of what people of color experience daily.
Our new book is called, “So You Want to Talk About Race”, by Ijeoma Oluo. As the book took shape in her mind she writes, “I wanted to create something of use. Something that would give readers the fundamentals of how race worked, not only in a way that they would take into their graduate race theory classes, but in a way that they would take to the office or to their Thanksgiving tables.”
After two years and some months of reading and discussion I need to be ready. It’s past time to raise my voice about the disparities in our society. It’s past time to find ways to be an ally. I need to put my discomfort behind me and speak “truth to power”. One way I can do this is to vote for people who support my values. I can find opportunities to speak out against racism . I can join groups that are involved in racial justice issues. I can keep learning so that I have the facts, the cold hard ones that are painful to face.
So I look forward to making my way carefully through Ms. Oluo’s book. She is a mixed race person – one white parent and one Nigerian parent. As I read this I can’t help but think about my grandsons. Their parents, my daughter and son-in-law, are a biracial couple. Ibrahim was born and raised in Nigeria and Jackie is from Webster Groves, Missouri. Their boys are literally African Americans. They help me see the need to figure out how to live peacefully in a world that gets smaller every day, in a United States in which people of color will predominate before this century is half over.